“It is good to look to the past to gain appreciation for the present and perspective for the future...”

Friday, February 6, 2009

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part III

St. Johns Academy Class of 1911 with Harold and Jessie marked.

We used to do some funny things. Mother would have fainted if she would have known them. One day some of my girlfriends and I went to Berry’s and borrowed some men’s suits and hats and put them on and went downtown past the ice cream parlor. These Berrys in the ice cream parlor saw us pass and they came out and they started to chase us. So we ran and I just heeled it up and started to crawl under Tenney’s fence and my pants came off. They were too big for me anyway and I just mopped the top of the fence on the pickets. I crawled out of my pants and hid back in the current bushes. The boys finally left and I went home.

I remember that I just hated school because of the teachers I had. I couldn’t understand a map and I thought north was straight up in the air. I didn’t know it was on the paper. I couldn’t get it in my head. I’d raise my hand up (I didn’t have sense enough not to raise my hand anymore) and I’d raise my hand and go up and ask the teacher if north was straight up in the air. My teacher would say to hold out my hand and he’d hit it with a ruler.

Some of my friends were Mary Ann Jones, Viola Thomas and Ethyl Greer. I had a lot of friends.

The first group of "Beehives" in St. Johns with Jessie Christensen on the left.

I used to walk in my sleep. Mother and Dad used to lock the door at the top and the bottom. But I’d get up (I was asleep when I did it) and unlock the screen door at the top and the bottom and walk out, I woke up one night and the moon was just going down and I looked down and I was on top of the tithing office barn. I was scared to death. You had to go up these high steps just to get up to this little platform to sit down. I went down as fast as I could and sent home and mother said, “Where have you been?” I said I was up on the tithing office steps. She asked me what I was doing up there. I said I didn’t know but I had woken up and saw the tithing office barn so I came home. She sent up in the morning and there was my quilt, I had taken it with me. If I hadn’t left it on the tithing office steps they wouldn’t have believed me.

Main Street, St. Johns.

On the 4th of July they’d have quite a celebration. They’d have a program in the morning and a little dance in the afternoon. At the dance they’d have a great big tub full of candy. They’d get up on the stage (there was a stage in the old schoolhouse) and throw the candy on the floor. Then the kids would have to get down on their hands and knees and scramble on the floor for the candy. I never would scramble but I wouldn’t have to because all the boys would bring me some. I wasn’t going to be humiliated by getting down on the floor.

We never had a Christmas tree in our house and all we had to do was go up on the hill and cut one. Not until Joe was left home alone did they put up a tree. We would hang up our stockings and my brothers would hang up their pants. They would tie the legs at the bottom. They got a .22 Rifle once. The card said that it was to both boys. We owned a half of a block in town and down below was just the alfalfa and over to the side was the coral and then the wood pile and then the house. One day Dad said he was going to go out and show the boys how to shoot by the poplar trees. So he told them to do just as Daddy did. They went out in the poplar trees and he was going to show them the gun and how to handle it. Just as he shot, the old milk cow, Bossy, walked out. She fell down and all her legs went up in the air and she was dead. The neighbor across the street came over and they skinned the cow and brought into the house a big chunk of meat and my mother said they could just take it out because she wasn’t going to cook old Bossy.

My Dad was the constable and he was called up if there were big fights in town. One time they had a big row up in Mexican town and one fellow was shot. Well—Dad was gone a long time, Pretty soon he came back and threw a big chunk of meat down on the table. He had gone to a butcher shop and bought the meat but when he threw it down on the table my mother thought it was the Mexican and she fainted.

Recent Comments

Contact Information

It's always wonderful to hear from relatives and friends, close or distant. This blog is an ongoing collaborative project, so if you have questions, memories or reminiscences, corrections, requests to use material, or additional pictures, documents, or histories to share, please leave a comment. We can't always see contact information in comments, so you can also contact Amy at amy ancestor files (that's all one word) at gmail dot com.

Followers

Subscribe

Contributors

It is good to look to the past to gain appreciation for the present and perspective for the future. It is good to look on the virtues of those who have gone before, to gain strength for whatever lies ahead. It is good to reflect on the work of those who labored so hard and gained so little in this world, but out of whose dreams and early plans, so well nurtured, has come a great harvest of which we are the beneficiaries. —Gordon B. Hinckley...